We’ve already given you a heads-up that McDonald’s was planning major menu and service style changes in its quest to remain in the forefront of the world’s Fast Food scene. We also told you it could take years for those changes to propagate throughout the McD’s empire. Well…
The future is now… Order by touchscreen, build your own Burger…
McDonald’s Canada this week announced that the promised changes it’s been teasing us with will be rolled out to all its Canadian outlets by the end of 2017. It’s a major undertaking which will see the chain that invented the Burger Chain innovate its way to the front of the pack, not only outdoing its traditional head-to-head competition but challenging the upstart boutique burger joints such as Five Guys and Chipotle’s as well.
What they’re doing…
“We are kicking off a bold plan to transform what guests experience when they visit McDonald’s restaurants across Canada,” said John Betts, president and CEO of McDonald’s Canada. “We want our guests to walk in and be wowed by an experience that’s modern and personalized, but still the McDonald’s they know and love.”
Betts told reporters that all Canadian McDonald’s outlets will be instituting do-it-yourself ordering via touchscreen kiosks. But that doesn’t mean the chain will be cutting staff. On the contrary, Betts says he expects each outlet to hire from ten to 15 more staff in the changeover – about 15,000 in total across the country. The expanded staff will not only prepare the food but deliver it to your table and clear away the garbage afterwards. One of those new employee positions will be a greeter who will welcome diners to the store and guide them through the ordering system.
On the menu front, a new 1/3 lb. / 150 g burger will be instituted as the basis for a new custom burger offering which customers can dress up with their choice of five cheeses and a dozen other toppings. The new burger will sell for (C)$6.99, (C)$0.60 more than McDonald’s current most expensive burger, the Mighty Angus. Is it worth it? You be the judge.
Betts says the new system has been test-driven in Australia where results were ‘promising’.
What’s next?
In the U.S., they’re starting off more cautiously, instituting All-Day Breakfast later this month. But we’re not getting that in Canada, yet. Go figure… One imagines that the Breakfast changes will come to Canada after the upheaval over the major changes announced this week dies down. It stands to reason that McD’s will roll out the new ordering system and menu in the much-larger U.S. market once it’s proven itself in Canada.
We’ll keep you posted as the McOdyssey unfolds!
~ Maggie J.